Butterflies Strike Back

Peacocks

I certainly spoke too soon in bemoaning the demise of the nymphalidae family in my last post!  It just took a couple of days of decent sunshine and they were out in force on the buddleia and gradually outnumbering the whites - first the small tortoiseshells on Sunday and then the peacocks, which were dominant by Wednesday when not a tortoiseshell appeared.  

Red admirals were however not to be seen, reinforcing my perception that they don't appear much when there are large numbers of peacocks, one of which got up close and personal, landing on my shoulder.

Things got even more interesting on Tuesday morning, when I noticed a wall brown nectaring on the buddleia.  I thought I'd seen it the day before but took it for a comma that disappeared when I investigated further.

Not only is wall brown not a common sighting in this area, I had never seen one on buddleia before.

As if to cap it all, the following day, a comma did turn up and spent a great deal of time gorging itself.

Then the whole thing came to an end and the murk descended again.  Today there wasn't a single butterfly anywhere.

Wall Brown

Comma

All Quiet on the Nature Front

By comparison it's been a quiet couple of weeks with no new sightings.  The often dreary weather hasn't helped.

I've been bemoaning the lack of nymphalidae on my now several flourishing buddleia bushes.  Setting off on a bike ride a week ago on Wednesday, I noticed with envy that there were a couple in a neighbour's garden, since when small tortoiseshell, red admiral and peacock have appeared in mine but very infrequently and singly.  I have yet to see a comma.  It may just be that the best is yet to come but my suspicion is that it is a very bad year for these species.

By contrast there has been a larger number of whites, I think possibly more than most years.  Far and away predominant has been the large white with jut occasional appearances by green-veined and small white.  Initially it was mainly females but males have come more into prominence recently.

Female Large White

One red admiral seemed to prefer the flowery pattern on my rather tatty peg basket to the buddleia.

Red Admiral

Otherwise I've been looking out for plasterer bees but haven't seen any.  I haven't been putting out the peanut feeders in the plum trees as much as I want to give the plums a decent chance to ripen without getting pecked.  However, long-tailed tits and a male nuthatch have visited on a couple of occasions.

Yesterday I was out fishing at Brenkley and never had a bite.  It was mainly an attempt to familiarise myself with the tactics of fishing banded pellet so I wasn't too worried and reckoned a good carp could come along at any time.  In fact no-one caught a carp and there were no definite signs of carp activity so it was probably just one of those unaccountable days when they aren't feeding.

Another New Sighting

One of the buddleia on the front garden has flowered early, inspiring a couple of visits from small tortoiseshells but so far nothing more glamorous.  Peacocks have been non-existent lately and red admirals have been seldom apart from four or five seen on a walk in Cumbria.

Somthing I have never seen before is a jackdaw sprawling out on the lawn.  I thought it was in distress but it had flown off when I went to take a look.  Perhaps it was just sunbathing?

Jackdaw

Anyway the frog wasn't too concerned.

For the Big Butterfly Count I decided to return to Wingate Quarry, being aware that I had made no attempt to keep a tally on numbers when I went before looking for the marbled white.

My totals over a 15 minute sunny period around midday were:

• Marbled White 14 (making my guesstimate of approaching 100 in over an hour last time fairly credible)
• Common Blue 6
• Meadow Brown 3
• Ringlet 2
• Geen-veined White 1
• Large White 3
• Small White 2
• Small Heath 11
• Small Skipper 3

Surprisingly, The Big Butterfly Count didn't require the last two to be reported, which was a bit of a shame.  Marbled whites weren't quite as numerous as last time, when it was often possible to see five or six at the same time.

Although looking very blue in flight, the one common blue I tried to photograph was clearly female.

One photo I did get was a poorish snap of a moth that I have found it hard to identify.

Moth

It looks a bit like a feathered gothic but doesn't seem quite right.

A surprising absentee from my quarry visits has been the small copper.  I also haven't seen a dingy skipper this year.  I did however spot a couple of peacocks at distance on my way back to the car park at Wingate.

Yesterday as planned for a while I took a bike ride to Cambois to see if I could catch up with the grayling butterfly.  Luckily I saw one - by complete chance as it landed right near me as I pushed the bike back from the dunes.

Grayling

One other suspect was spotted on the wing.  Identification on the wing was however a little troublesome as there were a large number of meadow brown about.  I was expecting the grayling to be larger but in fact the one I saw was about the size of a meadow brown, whereas some of the meadow brown were distinctly bigger than normal.

There were again several small skipper and his time I did manage to catch up with a male common blue.

Male Common Blue

I noticed that the land right up to the coast has been acquired by the car battery factory, so hopefully it's not the begiining of the end for the grayling at Cambois.

My latest adventure has left me wondering what butterflies present in Northern England I still need to see.  Apart from the marsh fritillary, which is on the hitlist for next summer the obvious answers would be large skipper and small blue.  The former is reasonably abundant and it may be that I have misidentified it as small skipper in the past.

But the small blue would probably necessitate a major expedition to even find it away from a private site in Teesside.

Oh, and I suppose there is still the mountain/northern brown argus.